Three Goddesses, Three Princesses, and the Influence of Tammam
by Batty Catty Pumpkin Pie
Summary: Each of the three Gods has a Goddess. Each of the three Dragons has a Princess. What would it have taken for the ancient legends to favor women and men equally? An unknown aunt of the Ishtar siblings escaped the tombs as a young woman, and she is sent on a mission to shape three girls into heroes. Japanese anime centric. Eventual Kaiba/Shizuka, Yami/Anzu, Jonouchi/Mai. Rewrite.
1. Chapter 1

**Three Goddesses, Three Princesses, and the Influence of Tammam**

Chapter One

It started the night Asima Tammam had a vision. Or maybe it started earlier. Maybe it started when she was still Batul Ishtar, a child locked away in a centuries-old underground Egyptian cavern, assigned to guard a dead Pharaoh's tomb.

It was a dusty place, a dark, dim underground series of stone rooms covered in hieroglyphs. The burial room was sacred; the tomb keeper's family lived in the others instead. "The Pharaoh shall return one day," Batul's father told her and her brother. He was a stern man, very traditional, and his wife had passed before Batul could remember her, but he was not a cruel master. That would be an untruth. "We have to be here when he does. Prophecy states that the Pharaoh will return to reclaim his rightful place as a King."

The Ishtar family's rules were strict. They could never go above ground except to gather food, which could only be the most humble. Strict Ancient Egyptian prayer several times a day. Exactly six hours of sleep on a pallet. A garb of simple robes, even during winter, when they had to hunch around a fire in blankets and rub their chests to stay warm. Constant study of ancient scripture, legends, and teachings. And above all, never to touch the olde magic of the Millenium Items. Only the ancient ghost who haunted the cavern could do that. Shadi was his name, and he had been murdered by an Ancient Egyptian thief king millennia ago. He guarded the Item magic.

Not even he guarded the Millenium Puzzle or the Pharaoh's real body, however. No one, including the Ishtars, knew where they had been hidden by the ancients trying to keep the return of the Pharaoh, and its world-threatening prophecy, from coming to pass.

The Pharaoh would return - Batul had already known that, before her father said it. She knew a great many things. When she dreamt, whispers filled her head, whispers of things to come. Sometimes when she was awake, she would be struck with sudden shaking and spells, visions of the future filling her eyes. Her family thought she had epilepsy.

"Protect your sister, for her health is delicate," their father told Batul's brother, Rahman. Rahman said he would do it, he would protect her. Rahman said he would do and protect everything.

Batul eventually realized that what she experienced was magic - powerful magic. She also knew that as an Ishtar, she was not supposed to be magic, not supposed to touch it. The ancient magicians who had created the Items were long gone. This world, she had been told, a world she had never really known, held no place for magicians. Only ancient relics contained magic. And the tomb keeper's legacy certainly did not allow for it.

There were old texts, ancient spellbooks, in a back room of the cavern, which were never touched. When Batul's shaking spells got worse and worse, she realized she was dying. The magic was killing her, eating her from the inside out because she didn't use it. She began sneaking into the back room and reading the magical texts when everyone else was asleep, by the light of the flaming torches on the dark, dusty, carved stone walls. She mastered the magic's exercises, and the more she learned to use her magic in secret, the less it ate away at her.

One day, crouched by a wall torch with an olde magic text, her robe wrapped around her and her feet in white slippers, she had looked up and found the ghost of Shadi floating before her. She gasped, clutching the book closer to her chest. Shadi stood and looked at her. It was hard to tell what he thought. He was a tall Egyptian man in robes and turban. He possessed two Millenium Items, the scale and the key, and wore large fanciful gold jewelry and kohl rimmed around his eyes.

"You are the girl with the magic," he said. "Why do you not seek out a Millenium Item?"

"Not all of us need Millenium Items to be magic," said Batul softly, her voice shaking.

"That is true. Remember that. It has to do with your destiny," said Shadi.

"My destiny?"

"Playing stupid does not suit you," said Shadi. "What do you See when you look into your future?"

"... A place I think must be aboveground," Batul admitted. "A professor's classroom. I believe the country is called Japan. But I don't know anything about being a professor."

"You know about Egyptology," Shadi pointed out. "Several major Tokyo universities have an Egyptology department."

"You know that?"

"I know all," said Shadi.

"But - I can't leave my brother," said Batul. "Rahman is miserable enough here as it is."

"Hm. Speaking of Rahman, he is coming," said Shadi. "See how he reacts. See whether your destiny is with him." Shadi's voice echoed, perhaps only to her, and he disappeared. Batul gasped, shot to her feet, and stuffed the magic book back on its shelf.

She was standing nervously in the room, hands behind her back, when Rahman walked in. His thin face was livid.

"What are you doing?!" he hissed, hurrying forward and grabbing her by the arm underneath her robe.

"But Rahman… haven't you ever been curious?" said Batul with eagerness, and Rahman slapped her hard across the face. She stood stiff with shock. It was the first time he had ever harmed her, and her cheek stung.

"Don't you understand?!" he said. "My responsibility is to everything! I am the son! I must keep the tomb! I can never leave! The tomb, the family, my sister, marrying, carrying on the legacy, it's all on _me_! I will only go aboveground once in my life, and it is to court!" His eyes burned. "And if I have to follow the rules, then so do you!" And he yanked her out of the room.

Batul should have been upset, but all she could think of was Rahman as a child. He had been a very happy, cheerful, smiling boy, a good brother - full of hope. But all she saw in his eyes then was bitterness.

Rahman and Batul became farther apart as they grew. Batul's sickness disappeared and she grew into a slim young woman, thin but not unhealthy, like a reed. Yet because of Rahman, she must study magic in ever greater secrecy. She began getting visions, of ancient monster and magic duels played in the modern day with holographic machines and cards, of legends both Ancient Egyptian and Ancient Atlantean, of prophecy and fate. She spoke with spirits from the Netherworld, the land of the dead, in her dreams, a glowing white air-water realm composed of spirits that were neither creature, Christian, nor Ancient Egyptian. That world led to reincarnation. She had doubts about the religion she was taught. And increasingly, she got visions of a future life - a life outside the tomb - a life she wanted.

She didn't know where her destiny led her. She just knew it wasn't here.

Rahman grew a thick, black beard. His tone became angry and fierce. His hand became harsh where it had once been gentle. He increasingly isolated himself inside the tomb, and was bitter and volatile to everyone he came across. The responsibility of being head tombkeeper, destined to keep the family line going, weighed heavily on him.

Batul realized she was about to take advantage of the fact that he had responsibility and she didn't. She realized she was about to abandon her family, her future nieces and nephews.

Even as Asima, all these years later, she still felt guilty about that.

She slipped a potion into everyone's wine on the night of a rare celebration - her eighteenth birthday. The only one who didn't take the sleeping potion during that feast down the long stone kneeling table was her. When everyone was passed out, she stole all the spellbooks and she fled the tomb.

She spent no time enjoying the sights she had never been allowed before. She went through the village and straight for the docks, the ships ferrying people out of the country. They bobbed, massive, lights gleaming in the salty blue water, the night wind cold and crisp. Everything was so airy and bright here.

She approached the big, burly Egyptian man in sand colored uniform guarding the docks and handed over a piece of parchment she had transfigured into a passport. She made her tone and her eyes desperate, as desperate as she needed them to be. "Please," she said, "my father - my brother - they are hurting me - I need to get away."

The guard in official uniform stared from her face to the passport. He heard and saw the genuine panic. Batul was sure if she was caught, Rahman would murder her.

Then the guard looked around, and shifted a new passport out of his back pocket. "What do you want your name to be?" he said, taking out a pen.

"What?" Batul was caught off guard.

The guard looked up at her like she was an idiot. He was helping her, she realized. But she was not hypnotizing him to.

Suddenly, Batul could have kissed him.

Batul meant _virgin_ \- a point of pride for her father and her brother. But Batul didn't want to be _virgin_ , and she did not want to be an Ishtar either. "Asima," she said. It meant _protector_. She tried to think of a good surname, a common one. "Asima Tammam," she said at last. "And I need passage to Japan."

"You will have nothing there," the guard warned her. "No money, identity, or education. You will be foreign."

"I will start work somewhere humble in a shop, and work my way to university," said Asima. "I want to become a professor of Egyptology."

That, she knew, was where her destiny lay.

She could have sworn she saw the guard smile, just a little, and she knew she'd said the right thing. "Well, Asima," he said, handing her the new passport, "say hello to Japan and goodbye to Egypt."

* * *

Asima had achieved her dreams. She had an Egyptology professorship in Tokyo, she was an ex-duelist with several trophies and two retired decks of sage and scholar monsters, and she had a nice house in a Tokyo city suburb. She had mastered the Japanese language. She had made friends. She had overcome the Japanese prejudice against foreigners and made a niche for herself. It had been hard work, but she had done it. And she had seen some of her visions come to pass - Duel Monsters games, for example, had been invented only after she had Seen them. Their American inventor, Pegasus Crawford, must have seen some very forbidden places in Ancient Egypt - who had in turn taken the game from Ancient Atlantis.

It was harmless. For now. Just cards. But if the holograms truly did occur, and the Pharaoh returned and dark Item magic began being used again…

No one would have suspected Asima's past - she had narrow blue eyes, high mahogany bronze cheekbones, and a sensible ponytail of black hair. She was still thin. She wore sweaters whose sleeves were pulled down over her palms and black slacks, but usually padded around silently in her socks. She had rectangular reading glasses, often over a quiet book. She meditated non-religiously often. She was strict on health foods and was currently on a Mediterranean diet, but she indulged herself in red wine and long baths. She as well as her house smelled of sandalwood and musk. She took milk with her tea, in the British fashion. She had boyfriends in the past, but no husband. She was well known among students as being strict and reserved, but not unapproachable and above all, she was calm and fair. She brought a mug of strong black coffee to her first class every morning, a rare indulgence.

The spellbooks were still carefully guarded in a locked chest within her home, written in ancient Arabic. She had never let go of them, and she had never again denied her magic.

Her purpose tonight was to get in touch with it once more. She lit a fire in the fireplace of her home, and filled it with a pink cloudy potion that induced visions, particularly dream visions. It was just her tonight, all alone, to herself, blinds and curtains down and drawn, windows and doors locked. The fireplace lit the living room in the blackened house. She sat back before the fire in a comfortable chair, and had a glass of red wine in preparation - very nice, Rust en Vrede Stellenbosch Ridge from South Africa, a velvety mix of ripe plum and fresh cherry - as a sort of pre-ritual relaxer and sleep inducer. It filled her body with warmth; her muscles loosened. It was a snowy winter outside, and winter nights were perfect for rituals like this. The New Year would come soon - a most auspicious time to search for visions.

The shadows flickered over the house around her. It had a modern yet Arabic design, a blend of the old and the new, and she lived in the vast house by herself and without complaint. She knew what many alternatives were, from living in a tomb to living in a flat above a city shop. She was very austere with money, saving up every bit of her earnings. She had never even spent her Duel Monsters prize money. By now she had about four years worth of money saved up that she could live off of without ever working at all, but Asima lived for her work.

"You could teach online classes instead," a female coworker suggested gently once. "The university offers that. You could travel. Have a life, or even children." Asima was polite, and she did have many sleek silver electronics turned mostly to feminist news sites, but she had never seriously considered the idea.

"I am fine," she said simply.

Nevertheless, her home as well as her food and drink reflected money well spent and elegant tastes.

She preferred flat, low-set, often leather furniture, a black and gold color scheme, dim elegant lighting, postmodern wall decorations, and countless candles. Her bedroom, for example, was low-set and gold-sheeted with flat black pillows, and it was surrounded by candles, while her current armchair was also low-set, carved black leather. The marbled floors were spotlessly clean, as was the marbled fireplace. Everything was eerily neat. Yet there were huge, tasseled tapestries of Arabic colors and patterns on the walls, and potted plants cared for by Asima dotted in every room. There were no doors and the wide floor to ceiling ratios and the yawning square doorways, as well as the long rooms, gave a feeling of space to the abode. Even now, the fairy lights hung by the ceiling were the only things that glowed in the black house besides the ever present scented candles. The neat black wood shelves of her home, with their gold edging, carried solemn Latin choir music and volumes of translated writing from Edgar Allan Poe - a surprise to many of her friends and coworkers, who expected more Egyptology.

"I live and breathe Egyptology," Asima told them dryly. "I do not need to take it home with me. I chose classical music and classical literature as college electives for a reason." She met to sing with a local choir in black garb every Wednesday evening.

In the present, Asima set aside her empty glass of wine on a tiny low-set table, knelt over the heavily fumed fireplace, and breathed deep the white, steamy smoke coming from the pink flames. The scent of the candles mingled with the fumes of the fire-potion, and slowly her vision glazed over until it transformed into… something else.

She was walking down a daylight dirt pathway lined with trees, the sunlight shimmering through the leaves into her eyes. She came to a fork in the forest, which broke off into two different directions. There was a signpost in the center, each sign pointing toward a different path. One sign said _What Could Have Been._ The other sign said _What Is._

She walked down _What Could Have Been._ The trees disappeared and on each side of the pathway, amid spiritual whitespace, were little bubbles. Each bubble showed a different scene, a different moment in someone's life.

A little girl with long auburn hair and hazel eyes was told by a doctor, "The injury is degenerative. You are going blind."

The little girl put her face in her hands and began crying. "It's because of my father," she sobbed. "My father used to hurt me…" The doctor didn't look like he knew what to say. He was at a loss for words.

Next the little girl, who was not blind and was now a preteen, was being flirted with by two older teenage boys, and defended by a blond teenage boy. "Will you stop flirting with my little sister?! I didn't get the money to fix her eyesight so she could be bothered by you two!" The other teenage boys seemed only slightly repentant. The girl stared from one to the other in innocent, helpless confusion. She had never been taught to deal with life, especially not on her own.

The girl was seen in another scene, standing on the sidelines of a Duel Monsters battle and cheering uselessly. She was passive.

But then another little girl appeared, with wavy blonde hair and violet eyes. She asked the orphanage matron, tugging on her apron, "Why am I here? What happened to my parents?"

The old orphanage matron squinted down at her sympathetically. "They were having money troubles," she said, and anger and upset formed over the girl's features as she realized she'd been given up.

"Well that will never happen to me!" she snapped, and stormed away.

In another scene, the blonde girl was a teenager, wearing revealing clothes, triumphantly grabbing a check from a Duel Monsters competition. "Here's to my new sports car!" she cheered, lifting the check up for the audience, who thundered with applause.

In another scene, the blonde girl was a woman in her twenties. She asked the blond teenage boy eagerly, "Was I in the dream of your friends? Huh?" The teenage boy blushed in embarrassment, said of course she hadn't been, and hurried away. The woman stared after him, upset and frustrated. She had begun looking for friends too late, and the friends themselves were too young. The blonde woman walked out onto the dueling stage, and in her emotional rage she was defeated in a Shadow Game, her soul taken.

And there was a third little girl, with short brown hair and blue eyes. She stood in a crystalline but sterile house, looking at her parents from a distance, troubled. The mother looked up. "Go play," she said coldly. "We don't have time for you."

In another scene, as a teenager, the girl told three teenage boys of her age - including the blond - intently, "We're friends. And that means we have to be there for each other, always." She sounded slightly self righteous and preaching, but her zeal was sincere. She clung to friends to make up for a lack of family.

She, like the first girl, was seen in the next scene cheering a duel uselessly from the sidelines. She had no incentive.

Asima looked forward, and stopped in surprise. The pathway had come to an end. Before her was just blank, spiritual whitespace.

Curious, she walked back along the pathway to the signposts and went down the other path. Apparently there was no road less traveled by, in the words of Robert Frost. Not in this dream, anyway.

So that was _What Could Have Been_. Now she was to see _What Is_.

She saw first on one side of the path, amid the white space, four bubbles right next to each other. The first three bubbles each carried one sleeping baby girl - all the same age. The next bubble showed all three girls, all teenagers of the same age as the three teenage boys from _What Could Have Been_. They and the boys were grouped together and smiling, in high school uniforms.

"They are all of an age with each other, and infants now," Asima realized. "And they are the perfect age, the same as the teenage boys. But who are they?"

A name appeared above each of the three bubbles carrying the infants, the letters all curling black ink amid the white mist. _Kujaku Mai. Mazaki Anzu. Jonouchi Shizuka_ \- then, below that, _Soon To Be Kawaii Shizuka._ A baby boy lay beside Shizuka - now her twin brother, not her elder. "She will leave her father," Asima said aloud. "Hence the name change." Nothing gainsaid her. A city name appeared above the three sleeping baby girls: _Domino City, Japan._

"So. Jonouchi Shizuka, Kujaku Mai, and Mazaki Anzu, all infants of the same age in Domino City, Japan. The ages of two women have been changed by the Netherworld spirits. They are supposed to enter Domino High at fifteen, join those boys, and face Shadow Games. But why show me this? How am I supposed to help them?" Her voice echoed throughout the seemingly empty mist, but Asima wasn't fooled. There were spirits all around her.

She walked on past the bubbles with the words above them, past the group of smiling teenagers. And then she saw a different image. The three teenage girls, now looking quite different, each standing straight and proud, professional duelist identification around their necks, two Duel Monsters cards raised in the air for each, the monsters from the cards behind them.

Asima gasped. Each girl carried one of the three Ancient Egyptian Goddesses of legend. And each girl carried one of the three Ancient Atlantean Princesses of legend.

"Unrealized potential," she whispered. "That is what the first path showed me."

She walked on - and paused, becoming quite still. There was a bubble with her, raising the three smiling girls here in her Tokyo home, as their mother. Then, beside that, the teenage girls at fifteen, entering a high school together in uniforms. The sign above the classroom they were entering said, _Domino High - First Year, Class B._ In a little bubble off to the side was a dark-haired girl with milky eyes - a different little sister for the blond boy.

"So I raise them… and then they return to Domino, where they meet the boys, as sisters at fifteen," Asima whispered, her voice shaken. "But how do I adopt them? They have families."

She passed by more bubbles. A drunk man throwing an empty bottle at his shrieking pregnant wife in a messy, shabby apartment - Shizuka's parents. Anzu's mother, shrieking amid a wide, fancy house, "I don't want a child! We were not supposed to have a child!" And Mai, languishing by a window as a child in an orphanage, abandoned by parents who couldn't afford her.

"I have to… adopt them. They all live in undesirable circumstances, and I have to find a way to use that and bring them under me - home with me to Tokyo," Asima said aloud, just to confirm. "So I got the vision when they are infants. That's why I'm here." She was stunned. "That is why I was commanded to leave my home as a tombkeeper. But what do I have to teach them…? Obviously they must learn dueling and become professional duelists… And if they are to control the Goddess cards, Egyptology is a must, as is Arabic and its ancient counterpart - That's it. Magic," she breathed, eyes flying open. "Magic and legends! That is what Shadi meant. Not all people with magic have Items. I can teach them magic - help them in the Shadow Games. It's the one thing I have that no one else does!"

The vision pushed her away in a great force, the trails getting smaller and smaller as her feet flew through air. Then it was as if she was coming up for air after dunking her head in the water. She gasped, lifted her head up, her face feeling cold though it wasn't wet. The fire was normal again, and low in the grate.

Asima immediately scrambled for her journal, her thoughts still shaken, a mess. She scribbled down everything she could possibly remember, one hand fisting her hair, her head bent over the paper. Her biggest takeaway?

 _Here is a summary of what I have learned. There are three infant girls in Domino City, Japan this year who need my help. All are born in terrible circumstances, but the three have the potential to awaken the great Princesses and the great Goddesses. Their names are Jonouchi Shizuka, Mazaki Anzu, and Kujaku Mai. I have to find them, find a legal way to separate them from their parents (I refuse to steal them), and adopt them. I have to raise them here in Tokyo, to be young magicians and professional duelists, learn Ancient Arabic. I then have to send them back to high school in Domino City at fifteen to fulfill their destiny, placing them and their friends in the deadly path of Shadow Games._

 _My entire life has apparently been leading up to this. No pressure or anything._

 _Fuck._

Really, it could be summarized in that one word. Fuck. Asima did not lose her cool very often, but right now she put the visions notebook down to be locked away later, sat back and ran a hand through her now-messy black hair, ink stains on her fingers from the fury of the pen. What the hell was she to do?

Asima had never been planning on raising any children, and she'd been perfectly happy with that. Asima was content with being alone. It was why none of her boyfriends had lasted. Letting someone in was hard for her; being alone was easier. Out of all the destinies she had considered for herself, she had considered this one least of all.

"What kind of a mother would I even _make?_ " she whispered, hand to her lips. "Could I really raise three daughters alone? Let alone daughters of a different ethnicity than I am?" It was a lot to ask of someone.

Logistically, her mind spinning automatically, she knew she could do it. Live off of her four years worth of money, then teach online classes from home. It had even been suggested to her. But emotionally, physically, energetically… could she do it? And could she make a good mother? Tammam Anzu, Tammam Mai, and Tammam Shizuka. What kinds of names were those? She was supposed to share secrets with these girls - legends, magic, duel strategies. Asima wasn't good at sharing anything.

It was the first time she had ever truly doubted the Fates.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

The female coworker who had recommended teaching online classes to her was named Tarada Umeiko, and she taught history and historical literature. She opened up her front door that morning to find Asima standing on the other side in a scarf and black winter clothes, cheeks flushed, stamping the outside snow from her boots on the doorstep. The quiet winter day lay behind her.

"Asima-san," said Umeiko, eyebrows risen, "this is a surprise." She had fluffed, short, salt and pepper black hair and a thin, lined, motherly face.

"Yes," said Asima awkwardly. "I'm sorry. I should have called."

"No, don't be sorry at all! Come in!" Still seeming surprised at this sudden bout of socializing, Umeiko stepped aside to let Asima into her home.

It was a small one-story place, covered in warm quilts and framed photographs of family and friends. It smelled like dumplings and a back screen door led out to a tiny garden. It was a bit shabby and cluttered with dustables, mostly rustic wood, but it was one of those places that immediately felt like home.

Asima realized she was staring. She quickly took off her boots and put them by the front door. There was another thought: Was her own house anywhere near as homey as this? Would three children like it there?

"Please sit down," said Umeiko kindly, waving to her Western style table.

Asima sat down obligingly. "I do not deserve such kindness," she said, bowing her head. "I have always distanced myself from you, and now I come on a mission."

"Well, now, you are very dedicated, Asima-san, if a bit severe. No one faults you for that. It is to be admired," said Umeiko frankly, with only slight disapproval. She sat down beside Asima at the table. "What do you need?"

"... Advise," Asima admitted.

"A second surprise," said Umeiko, and she honestly looked it.

"I - want - well I don't want, but -" How could she say what was going on without admitting too much? "I'm sorry, I don't know how to put it. I came without thinking -" Asima started to stand, but Umeiko placed a hand over hers.

"Why don't I make us some tea?" she suggested.

* * *

The kettle whistled. Umeiko took it off the burner, turned off the stove, and poured the water into two mugs with tea packets. She placed one steaming cup at Asima's place, one at her own. The mugs were simple, yellowish white with little sprigs of flower on them, and humble.

"I thank you," said Asima, wrapping her hands around the warm mug. She took a piping hot sip, and felt the burning liquid slip down her throat, soothing her. She started to thaw a little bit, calming herself.

"So," said Umeiko in a businesslike manner, sitting down. "You want something but you don't want something. What is it that you want but don't want?"

"... To adopt children," Asima answered truthfully.

Umeiko nodded, taking this in. "So you want to raise the children and I know you can logistically, yet you are afraid of giving up being alone and afraid of raising them with a foreign mother. Perhaps you are also afraid of failing them?"

Asima stared at her in honest surprise. "How did you know…?"

"Oh, Asima." Umeiko smiled in amusement. "You are not nearly as hard to read as you think you are." Asima did not know what to say to this. She sat in silence, and Umeiko correctly interpreted the silence as an assent. "Alright. Let's deal with each problem in turn, from back to front.

"First, you are afraid of failing them. I have grown children, Asima, and I am going to tell you a little secret. We are all, and always, afraid of failing them. Including me."

"But - you're motherly," Asima protested. "I'm not."

Umeiko chuckled. "Not yet. You might surprise yourself. All mothers manage, mothers of all different styles. You are more sophisticated, but that is not necessarily a bad thing - you are calmer, and could provide more.

"And let's look at it this way," she said, when Asima still didn't seem convinced. "No matter what we do in life, there is a chance we will fail. So why do anything at all? We could fail at everything!

"You are usually so brave, Asima. To come here alone with no money and work your way through university, learn a foreign culture and language - that is a very brave thing. What you left behind in Egypt, I don't know, but leaving it must have taken enormous courage. You could also have failed at that, but you tried anyway. And, clever girl, you managed.

"What if you had never left Egypt? What would have happened?"

"... I would have spent the rest of my life miserable," Asima realized, troubled, "wondering what might have happened if I'd had the courage to run." Umeiko smiled meaningfully. "But what about the worry about the girls having a single foreign mother? I might surprise myself as a mother, and I might need to stop being so afraid of failure, but you have to admit _that_ worry at least is valid."

Perhaps, since Asima being a mother was fated to be, she might surprise herself as a mother. Perhaps she should have the courage to give it a try. But what would Umeiko have to say to this next, more realistic worry?

Umeiko looked down, and spoke carefully. "I cannot totally advise you in this," she admitted. "I could tell you that if anyone has a problem with an interracial family, screw them. To let your heart guide the way. But it's not always that easy, is it?

"All I can tell you, Asima, is that there are plenty of Japanese couples who would make for much worse parents than you. If it was a choice between many a Japanese person I know, and you, I would choose you for a parent - every time. You are responsible and you have a good heart. That's important. I think if anyone could manage being a single foreign mother, it would be you."

Asima swallowed, and also looked down. She was choked up and she didn't entirely understand why. "Thank you," she managed at last, and she meant it. "I know most of my fears… are just panic anxieties. I am…"

"You are afraid of losing your precious isolation," said Umeiko, nodding. "May I make an observation, Asima?"

"You are on a roll today. Please do," said Asima frankly.

Umeiko smiled, amused. "It is not that you are selfish, Asima. You do not use your isolation to indulge yourself. Do not take this the wrong way, but sometimes it seems to me that instead you use it to hide. And that is why you are alone."

Asima stilled.

"You have to let people into your life sometime, Asima," said Umeiko quietly, her eyes pitying. "You need some sort of family, and if this is what your heart is telling you, all the better. But loneliness changes us, it becomes our comfort zone, and there will be a lot of damage you have to undo to let it go."

Asima suddenly stood. Looking worried, Umeiko stood with her. "Thank you," said Asima, almost mechanically. "You've… given me a lot to think about. I must go."

"I hope I have not offended you," said Umeiko, her brow creased in concern.

"No. Not at all. You… were right on the mark, I think." Asima squinted her eyes shut with effort against a sudden headache. "I… I just need some time to consider my options."

Umeiko nodded uncertainly, and led her to the door.

"Remember, Asima," she said, pausing in the doorway. "It is not all about you. If you decide to adopt… some beautiful little children out there need you, and would be very lucky to have you."

Asima paused and stared back at Umeiko, wide-eyed and torn. Umeiko smiled a little sadly, and shut the front door.

* * *

Asima took a walk in the cold and the snow, walked into the downtown area, through the winter crowds and past the city lights and tall buildings. It was close to Christmas and New Year's celebrations, and chattering, excited crowds of shopping people filled the streets and the restaurants, swarming past the gleaming glass storefronts.

But the escape tactic of city walking didn't work. Every child Asima passed, every little girl… she thought of those three little girls. If she didn't picture their alternative childhoods and how much they needed her, she pictured holding their hands and smiling in an indulging way as they giggled and leaped through the streets. Just like the little daughters with parents that she passed.

She found herself staring at families, who caught her eye in confusion and suspicion. Asima looked awkwardly away, embarrassed, and continued walking.

A part of her told her she couldn't do this. But she realized in surprise that another part of her thought longingly of her big, dim marble house being full of children's cries and footsteps. She thought longingly of having children, being a mother. Being a wife was not for her, but being a nurturer was something else. Protector - that was what her name meant.

She realized, her eyes stinging (because of the cold wind, she told herself), that she didn't want to be alone anymore. And that thought surprised her.

Umeiko was right in one way. It was never about indulging herself and enjoying isolation. It was about hiding. Asima had been taught all her life that people could only go it alone, that one had to keep a straight face, that distance was necessary. As Batul, she had been taught to hide and distrust. As Asima, she'd had no one to help her.

Distance and isolation were comfortable. But Asima had already had to go outside her comfort zone once in her life, and that was in a big way. She felt strangely on the cusp of something - just as she had back then.

She didn't know who to turn to. For the first time in a long time, she wished for her family, but Asima expected they would all be too angry with her to have much advice to give. She'd burned those bridges long ago.

* * *

So instead, she turned to the library. While everyone else made Christmas and New Year's preparations, she holed up in back tables with library texts under the sympathetic eyes of the librarian. They were all baby books. She needed as much information as possible.

But aside from some essential, obvious rules, all the books had different advice. It seemed parenting was something one figured out for oneself. And this was no help at all. Of course she could learn the physical techniques, but what about that "mothering instinct" she'd always heard about?

Tired after many days of reading and studying, she wandered out of the library and ended up sitting on a frigid, dark bench at a park. She looked across the field - and realized she could see children playing, in the distance. They were making snowmen. She had never noticed what an awful lot of children the world held until now.

"Having a child yourself?" Asima looked around. The mother of the playing children was sitting beside her on the bench, smiling.

"Am I really that obvious?" Asima asked, exasperated. The mother simply laughed. "Hey, can I ask you something? I don't feel like I have that… mothering instinct everyone keeps talking about. I'm not one of those women who coos at children."

"The mothering instinct is a myth. I didn't coo at children either, but I love my own. And there was no mothering instinct… only a desire to protect, and a love that formed over time.

"You don't think you're going to end up a good mother, but you learn, you know. You take the lessons from your childhood, and decide which ones to repeat and which ones not to."

Asima relaxed, an almost-unnoticed fear lifted from her mind. "My childhood was… not spectacular," she admitted flatly.

The woman nodded. "It's all about what you choose to emulate," she said thoughtfully. "You can either choose to be like your family, or choose to be not like your family. It's up to you. Plenty of women with horrible childhoods end up becoming wonderful mothers."

Asima watched the playing children, nodding. "Is it harder?" she asked at last. "Having more than one child?"

"It is," the woman admitted, contemplative. "But if you do it right…" She smiled. "Those children will have at least one best friend for life. And your house will be full and animated. Wouldn't that be nice?"

* * *

The words echoed through Asima's mind days later, on New Year's Eve, as she was sitting at the marble countertop having cold soba noodles alone inside her big, dim home.

Sophisticated, she had once thought it. Now it seemed empty, dank, and silent.

 _Your house will be full and animated. Wouldn't that be nice?_

Asima sighed. She'd heard the line in a movie at the theater once, alone ironically: _You look like a new mother. Scared shitless._

"This is the stupidest thing I have ever done," she announced aloud. "But alright. I'll try to help them."

The words echoed through her home, and on the surface nothing changed. But Asima felt something hovering in the air, something almost like anticipation. Whether that was the spirits or herself, she could not tell.

The clock chimed midnight. The new year had struck.

* * *

Asima walked up to the private investigator's office door, one amidst many in a wide rented office building with thin, dull, color-flecked commercial carpet and a gleaming elevator. He was on the third floor, and the gold plate on his door, when she stepped out into the morning air from the elevator, read _Hideyoshi._

 _What a magnificent name,_ she thought grumpily, clutching her cup of coffee and taking a sip. She'd had to get up at 6 AM to make it here on time and was rather sour about it. Asima was not a morning person.

She knocked on the door and it swung open at once. A heavily jowled man with browned skin, broad shouldered and scowling with a closely shorn buzz cut of dark hair, opened the door for her. He wore official dark clothes.

"Tammam-san?" he said gruffly. "Come right in."

Asima entered, and sat down across the brown wood desk from him. His laptop was open, though she could not see it, notepads and pens littered all around him. He was somewhat disorganized but, she thought sarcastically, at least he would never run out of places to write things down.

Hideyoshi-san sat down across the desk from her. "Now," he said, dark eyes concentrated closely on her underneath heavy, carved eyebrows. "What do you need?" It was like something out of an old fashioned noir movie.

She cleared her throat, surprised, and slid across the desk a slip of paper with three family surnames and a city name. "I would like these three families investigated. All I know is that their names are Jonouchi, Mazaki, and Kujaku, and they all have at least one infant child. They should be young couples. They live in Domino City."

She thought simply asking him to find three babies who belonged to other families would seem suspicious even for a private investigator.

The man nodded, scribbling things down, typing notes on his computer. "And… what would you like to know about them?"

"I want a complete inventory of all their family members, where they live, and what their general job and family situation is. I would also like the names and addresses of any family friends they might have," Asima listed off. The private investigator nodded, making notes. She slid a check across the desk next. "Here is your payment."

He took the check and his eyebrows lifted at the sum.

"Well," he said, smiling icily and pocketing it, "this will be a very thorough investigation."

"I had hoped so," said Asima contemptuously.

Her plan was to talk to all the parents - and then adopt all three girls at the same time, assuming they were all already born. But first, in order to convince them, she had to find them.

The investigator and Asima talked for a few minutes more, and then they both stood, the meeting finished. "Quick timing is imperative, Hideyoshi-san," said Asima, frosty and reserved.

"Of course, Tammam-san," he said obediently, ushering her politely toward the door.

The pieces had been set. Now the game was to be played. Asima had once, after all, been a gaming strategist. And as her biological family could attest, once she had decided on something, she did not exactly fuck around.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

It was impressive how fast Asima was called back into Hideyoshi-san's office.

"I told you quick, but it's only been a week," she said, pleased and impressed, sitting down across the desk from him again.

"Well, you gave me a lot to work with." Hideyoshi shrugged. "With surnames, exact city, and general age and lifestyle specifications, and the fact that all the adults use social media, I almost didn't deserve the money. Not that I'm giving it back."

"Of course," said Asima, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

Hideyoshi smirked. "Here's your information," he said, and handed over typed pages of notes detailing exactly where each family lived and what they consisted of, as well as all traceable family friends and their addresses. She got names, ages, everything - even Mai's orphanage. She'd chosen her investigator carefully - just sensible enough not to screw her over, just shady enough that he wouldn't look too closely at what he'd uncovered.

"Oh! I didn't get birthdays," she said, as if this were a great surprise and she'd just remembered. She asked for everyone's birthdays, to take the finger away from the children and point it at the parents.

Hideyoshi looked vaguely surprised. "You're going to throw one of them a birthday party?" Asima glared up at him flatly. "Alright, alright." He put his hands into the air in a gesture of surrender. He took out his notes, and rattled off the birthdays of each member of all three families.

Mazaki Anzu had been born first, on August 18th of last year. Then came Jonouchi Shizuka, on November 1st of last year. And finally Kujaku Mai, on November 20th of last year. That would make Anzu about five months old, while Mai and Shizuka were about two months old.

"Alright," said Asima, looking over her notes and deciding she had everything she needed, including addresses. She stood. "You've already been paid, Hideyoshi-san, so thank you for your time and services." He stood as well, and they shook hands formally.

As they did, Asima looked into his eyes and whispered a spell. She carefully plucked the memory of this case from his brain and wiped the memory away. He fell over in his chair, eyes blank. Asima walked smoothly out of the office, smirking, wiping the files on her in his office and in his computer blank on the way by.

Hideyoshi-san would come to, blinking, a few minutes later, with no clear memory or record of the past week. He'd realize later that he'd been paid from a frozen account for a case that he, by his own knowledge, didn't solve. The only other thing he had left was a lingering perfume of sandalwood and musk in his office.

* * *

The nursery was set. Three cribs were set across the long, rich, gold-colored room, each one hung over with a canopy of fantastic Arabian colors and cloth. Hanging from the center of each canopy was a mobile of glow in the dark stars. Plants and more fairy lights lined the walls and edges of the nursery.

But the room seemed empty. It needed children.

Asima planned it all carefully. She called Mai's orphanage and said she was interested in adopting a baby girl. They gave her a list of names, and she made an appointment to visit Kujaku Mai, seemingly at random, at Domino City Orphanage the following week.

She had to make sure, just in case the Kujaku parents called the orphanage ahead of her.

Then she booked a three-week stay at a Domino City hotel, rented a car, and drove two hours straight to a slum just outside Domino City. That was where Mai's biological parents lived.

She drove past rundown, graffiti covered buildings, windows smashed, locked bars on other windows, poverty stricken people in baggy clothes in the streets. She edged her way down several narrow side streets before finally arriving, squinting through the windshield, at what seemed to be the correct address. It was a two story house, and one family lived in each story. Mai's parents, it was said, lived in the first story. Asima could see clothes hanging from clotheslines in front of their house, crisscrossing between their own building and the one across the street, indicating they couldn't afford a laundromat. The front door was closed but the screen was slightly ajar.

She got out of her car, fit the bar across the wheel, slammed the door shut and locked it. It was parked illegally along the side street Mai's parents lived in. Asima looked around, then hurried across the street to the Kujaku couple's front door. She was wearing sweatpants, sneakers, and a sweatshirt, along with a messier ponytail, in an effort to keep it from looking like she had something worth stealing. The car was humble, too, inexpensive, small, and black.

She moved the screen aside and knocked on the front door. "A minute!" she heard a woman shout from inside, and then the door swung open. Mai's mother was a vast, scowling woman in a baggy T shirt. She didn't have all of her teeth, probably because she couldn't afford a dentist. "Yes?" she snapped, leaning against the front doorway, not allowing Asima inside. Asima couldn't blame her suspicion. She saw the figure of a man in an armchair in front of a tiny old television in a postage-stamp sized living room, his feet up on the coffee table. A dog lifted its head from the floor to whine anxiously. The place was shabby, but it smelled like good food.

Mai's mother moved aside so that Asima could no longer see the interior of the house. "Yes?" she repeated more aggressively. "Look, I don't fuckin' know you, so unless you got somethin' to say that interests me -"

"I'm sorry," Asima blurted out. "I'm here about your daughter."

"My daughter -?" the woman repeated in confusion. Then she froze as realization hit her. She didn't have a daughter, but then she seemed to remember the one she'd given up. Anger began to gleam in her eyes, growing slowly.

"I, I'm considering adopting her, and I was just wondering if I could have your permission -" Asima babbled quickly, for Mai's mother intimidated even the unassailable Asima. She was intimately aware, suddenly, that she was in violent territory with nothing but her magic to help her.

The woman sighed, as if tired, her anger going out like a light being turned off. She leaned against the doorway. "Look. We gave up the girl for a reason. We hope she has a good life. We really do. But it ain't me ya have ta ask no more. I - I didn't want it to be that way. But that's how it is." She glared defensively.

"What's going on?!" a male voice called from within, where the small, cheap TV was running.

"Nothin'!" the mother called, and slammed the door in Asima's face with something like bitterness. Asima got the impression of a woman who had been disappointed at having to give up a child for money troubles - disappointed, but used to disappointments.

Next came the appointment with Mai herself at the orphanage.

Asima walked up to a tall, forbidding dark grey stone building. It would be renovated a few years later, the orphanage, supposedly to be made more palatable. But for now when she knocked on the door, it was a somber place. The place that Mai in the other timeline had grown up.

A door swung open and a young woman in white uniform stood there. "Hi, I'm here for an appointment about a possible adoption," said Asima. "I'm supposed to meet Kujaku Mai."

Asima would give this to Mai's mother, she had not looked Asima up and down as if she were an alien, the way this girl did now. But at last, the serving girl said in a tone of distinct confusion, "... Come in." She stood aside to allow Asima entry, her brow furrowed in suspicion.

But the matron, that motherly old lady from Asima's vision, bustled over. "Tammam Asima?" she said brightly. "Right this way. Come meet Mai."

She led Asima by the arm through the entryway and up the stairs. Asima did not like to be touched but she tried not to show that. They entered the infants' wing, which was two long rows, one on each side, of cribs set next to rows of windows. It was plain, bare, shabby, poor, and grim, all grey linoleum.

There were names at the ends of the cribs, "so we can tell them apart," the matron explained. Asima was brought to the crib labeled _Kujaku Mai._

Asima walked up hesitantly, and bent over the crib. Baby Mai turned around with effort and looked up at her, as if determined to see her future mother, blinking up at her with big violet eyes. There was a kind of intensity to her look, unusually sharp for an infant, as if Mai was assessing her options just as much as Asima.

Asima smiled.

"Hello, Mai," she murmured, taking up a toy and dangling it above Mai's crib. Mai gave the toy a determined bat, and knocked it right out of her hand.

"Mai!" said the matron, despairing, but Asima was laughing.

"No, she has spirit," said Asima with great humor. "I like her."

"Really?" said the matron, hopeful and tentative.

"Yes. In fact." Asima drew herself up proudly. "Have the adoption papers drawn up. I will have her with me by the end of the month."

The matron beamed in triumph.

Asima eventually left the orphanage, one adoption already underway, but she had one more visit to make. A family friend of the Mazakis was a gym trainer. Asima entered the gym, and the tall ponytailed blonde bounced right up to her.

"Hi!" she beamed. "Are you here to -?"

Asima whispered a word and looked into the gym trainer's eyes. The gym trainer's blue eyes went blank, her perfect jaw slackened. "You are a friend of mine. My name is Tammam Asima," said Asima. "I am looking for an adopted daughter. You will recommend me as a potential mother to the Mazakis, and arrange for a meeting." She slipped the slack woman's phone out of her pocket, typed in a number for a personal cell phone she'd bought just for this occasion, and slipped it back in. "My number is on your phone. You will call me when the meeting is arranged. You will awaken in exactly sixty seconds with no record of this meeting."

She let the magic snap away, turned, and walked straight back out of the gym, running back down the outdoor mall parking lot to her car.

Now for the hotel.

* * *

All it took with Shizuka's mother was a private letter pretending Asima knew a social worker. She put a vague hypnotic trance over it, and the panicked woman immediately called, agreeing to meet.

Asima sat down across the outdoor Domino City cafe table from the woman. She had brown hair and worry lines; she was thin and wore poor clothes; she looked constantly around, shifty.

"I promise nothing untoward is happening!" she said immediately, tears in her voice. "My husband - he drinks too much and he gambles too much - and sometimes he gets loud and carried away, but he -!"

"Relax. I am not here to put your husband under arrest, and neither is my social worker friend," said Asima. "She put us into contact because I am looking to adopt an infant daughter, and you have one."

The woman paused.

"It would be discreet," said Asima. "I am wealthy, a professor. I live in Tokyo. I have a nice house. I have no nasty relatives, and one other daughter around your daughter's age. Shizuka, was it?"

"... Yes, Shizuka," said the woman tentatively. Asima could see her already considering it, and that was no hypnotic trance. She was firm on that. All the parents would agree under their own power. She would just arrange the meeting. "It is true, a little girl should not be brought up in that environment, more so than a little boy."

Asima remembered the messy, cramped little apartment, the angry drunken man and the thrown beer bottle, the screaming mother, from her vision. It was hard to tell whether that was a pattern of behavior, or just one night amid a somewhat shitty life. Shizuka or her replacement sister would supposedly be injured in the eyes by their father. But if Asima changed too much in Jonouchi Katsuya's life, there was also a chance he would never achieve his destiny.

"My husband would kill me," said Shizuka's mother, humiliated and terrified. "And her brother Katsuya, of course, he can never know."

Here, Asima was not sure what would happen. She knew another little girl would come, in spite of Shizuka's mother not right now seeming to want one. What did that indicate? There was the darker version of things, but then there was simply the idea that many times a couple had another child as a replacement, or because they thought it would fix everything.

"I could take care of your daughter," said Asima quietly at last, and simply. It was all Fate would allow her to do, or so she told herself. "I will follow all your requests. I will tell no one of your situation, and I will give your daughter a good home. I will keep her given name - Shizuka. That is what you wish?"

Shizuka's mother sat back, defeated. "It _is_ what I wish," she admitted.

"Shall we arrange a meeting to sign the papers, then?" said Asima, purposefully light.

"... Yes." A light suddenly came into the mother's eyes, and she sat up straight. "You know what, screw him! _Fuck_ yes!" Passing people glanced over at the sudden explosion of sound.

Asima made the arrangements. Only one parent was needed to sign, so the mother would come alone to the official's office with baby Shizuka on the appointed day. As she walked away from that cafe, Asima was beginning to feel very sick with what she was doing. She may have just taken one child away but consigned two others to a horrifying childhood household. She may have just comforted a mother, but made her life misery.

But these three girls needed and deserved a good home, and they were destined to help save the world if they were raised by Asima. The world itself was at peril, as was the girls' lives and outcomes, as was Jonouchi Katsuya's, who was similarly a part of saving the world. And that outweighed the costs.

Asima knew why the spirits had chosen her at last. It wasn't because she was a good person. It was because she was a bad person, who liked to pretend she was good. She had brought herself up from nothing, to pretend she was good. She had abandoned her biological family, because she wasn't. She would raise the girls well, to pretend she was good. She would take them away and do nothing else, because she wasn't.

* * *

The arranged meeting with Anzu's parents came last.

Asima sat down in the living room across from the stiff, wealthy couple. The cushions were expensive, but stiff, poofed, and uncomfortable. Formal pictures filled the walls of the cold house.

"I am so glad we had a family friend introduce us," said Asima warmly. "I heard you just had a baby girl. Congratulations."

The couple shared a look. The mother sighed and looked away. "Well," she said, "I suppose we have to put up with her."

"You didn't want a child?" Asima asked with polite curiosity. She already knew.

"Well. It was a surprise," said the mother with flat bitterness. "But financially, we can manage."

"I… think I might know a solution without either of you losing face," said Asima slowly. "I've… actually been looking to adopt a daughter. I am a professor of Egyptology from a respected Tokyo university, and I even used to be on the dueling circuit. I live in a Tokyo suburb and have two other beautiful daughters around Anzu's age.

"And I have enough money to take a leave of absence from my job and raise the girls in their infancy. I could then work from home. And I would certainly love to have your daughter."

The couple looked at one another once more. "It's an idea," said the husband quietly. "She is reputable; Akane can vouch for her."

"It certainly is an idea…" said the mother brightly, thoughtful and interested. "Yes, that is quite an idea… Why don't I show you Anzu?!"

She stood, suddenly excited and energized, and ran from the room. She came out with a baby girl with blue eyes, and placed the swaddled girl in Asima's stiff, uncertain arms. Asima held up a finger; Anzu made a firm noise and grabbed onto it with tiny hands, holding it close.

Again, Asima found herself smiling despite herself - her second smile this whole trip.

"Yes," she said. "I like your daughter very much."

The Mazaki couple looked at each other. "We will never get a better opportunity," said the father simply.

"... Alright," said the mother, determination filling her eyes. "Let's do it."

And they arranged for adoption papers to be signed.

* * *

Asima picked out one day toward the end of her trip, and got up early. She got the car ready, packed with groceries, diaper bags, and baby toys in the trunk. She strapped in the car seats for infants using the directions.

Then she drove around and got each girl in order.

She signed the papers in the orphanage matron's office, and the little old lady beamed as she handed Mai into Asima's arms. Asima took Mai out, and strapped her into the car.

Next was the office to sign the adoption papers beside Shizuka's mother. They both signed, and then Shizuka was placed into Asima's arms by her own biological mother. Shizuka had hazel eyes, Asima knew, but she was peacefully sleeping, looking as serene as the meaning behind her name. For the third time, Asima smiled at that picture of dreaming happiness. Then she noticed the mother's eyes beginning to water.

"She will have a good home," said Asima, uncertain but trying to be comforting. The mother let out a sob and hurried away out the door, running off, her hand over her mouth. Asima looked after her, somber and torn, filled with guilt.

Nevertheless, Shizuka was strapped in beside Mai in the very back seat.

And finally was Anzu. Asima drove to the Mazakis' house. The papers were signed in the living room by all three parties, and then Anzu was handed over to her. There was no sadness in these parents. They were happy to see the girl go - not because they regretted being unfit for parenthood and were happy to see Anzu placed in a good home, but because they saw their daughter as a fundamental and undesired mistake and were happy to see the back end of her.

Asima left them and their city townhouse behind with a bad taste in her mouth. Those were the kind of people who would only regret if their daughter amounted to anything - and Asima was determined to ensure such. Professional duelist at a young age? That should do it.

Someday, Asima promised herself, they would regret just as much as the other couples did. Anzu deserved that. She strapped Anzu in beside her new sisters in the car across the street.

She stood, hands on her hips, looking at them. "Well, Tammam Anzu, Tammam Shizuka, Tammam Mai," she said. "We're all together. There's no going back. Let's all do our best."

Only as Asima looked at the happy little baby girls did her guilt lighten. She would learn this - only the gift of her daughters made it all worth it. Not even who they would become, but the daughters themselves. They were what brought her happiness.

She would always regret abandoning Jonouchi Katsuya and his second sister to their parents, in the same way she would always regret abandoning her biological family to the tombs. The adults in all those places had free will, she knew, and she knew that Shizuka's sister would escape, and she knew that Jonouchi Katsuya would save his sister's eyesight and go on to save the world. But the guilt remained. Yet… as she looked at the girls themselves… Asima found she couldn't regret a thing.

She strapped herself into the car, and began the two hour drive back to Tokyo. As the car zoomed away, she never looked back. She and her daughters would not return to Domino for roughly fourteen and a half years.

If there _was_ any great scale weighing in the afterlife, she would try to make up for all the bad she had done to others by investing these girls with every scrap of love and goodness she could find within her blackened soul.

She understood now. She had not been given a lighter load than Rahman. If anything, she had been given a heavier load. She was the one the universe had given power to and then told only to do with it what Fate willed.

The best job she would ever have - it was raising these three girls, to be happy and healthy, giving them the power they needed to survive what Fate had in store for them. She got to shape their hand in destiny.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Getting used to being a new single mother with three infant children - Asima had expected it to be hard.

She was wrong. It was harder.

At first she simply got no sleep at all. If one wasn't wailing in the middle of the night, another one was. Finally, she learned to time it so she took care of all three at the same time. She kept an alarm on her phone and like clockwork, she woke up and got up every two hours to feed and burp all three babies and change all of their diapers. She kept that two-hour ritual up throughout the day, so their bodies would get used to the routine.

And at first it seemed that was all they did: ate, burped, pooped, and slept. Asima made sure to talk to them every day, not in a baby voice, but chattering to them in idle conversation, as though they were equals. She waved toys above them and made stupid airplane noises, watching in amusement as they tried to bat at the toys.

But mostly, they just watched and listened. It was as if they were drinking in everything around them, eating things up, from their new nursery to their new mother. They were learning, Asima realized eventually. They were learning from their surroundings.

She bathed all three of them at once, in a tiny bathtub, rubbing them carefully with soothing, relaxing lavender water, holding them upright with one arm and trying to be as tender as possible. She fed them healthy soy formula. She bought a giant stroller and took them walking to the park for one hour every afternoon. People stopped and cooed at them as they passed, waving hello and calling them "adorable." This was almost as expected as the perpetual surprise of passersby at the difference between Egyptian mother and Japanese daughters. Asima didn't encounter as much overt prejudice as she had expected, though she had to get over the occasional nasty comment and pretend with frosty dignity that it didn't hurt.

The girls weren't always as cute as they seemed. Asima had expected new motherhood to be disgusting, and it was. The girls pooped both inside their diaper and while being changed, they threw up on her on a regular basis, and if they weren't sneezing on her they were rubbing their faces against her shirt to combat runny noses. Asima had a strong constitution when it came to the disgusting, but she was so compulsively clean that she never liked this part. Saying something or waving a hand away did no good; the babies didn't understand.

It was mostly just a lot of work. If she wasn't carrying and bouncing one, she was carrying and bouncing another, and each individual girl needed newborn care. All of Asima's friends had to group together to help her - Umeiko (who called herself "Grandma" to them), her scholar friends, and her choir friends combined. The girls were watched while Asima went to the relative bliss of the grocery store, when she went to choir group, and sometimes when she just needed a bit of precious time to herself. Even that was fraught, though - it took some time for the girls to be comfortable being babysat. The first few times Asima left, they would begin crying and screaming heart-wrenchingly for their mother, even as Grandma Umeiko tried to comfort them.

Each girl had an individual personality.

Shizuka was peaceful and serene and rarely cried; she favored her mother with lots of gummy smiles and loved watching big, colorful objects moved before her face, waving her hands at them. She was a cuddler.

Mai cried often, loudly, and insistently the minute she wanted something, but she also stopped crying quickly and had a great deal of energy - she batted at her toys, wiggled her arms and legs around a lot, and seemed determined to roll around and sit up very early.

Anzu made lots of little noises, as if trying to communicate, and she was continually watching everything around her with a very keen eye. She always quieted and stilled when the two-hour point came, as if already as an infant she had her world figured out and memorized.

Asima didn't expect the upwelling of affection to come so early. But far before they began walking and talking, she realized she felt enormous fondness for the children, in spite of all the trouble they caused. It was difficult to watch such an innocent, passionate personality that was tiny, fragile, and entirely dependent on you, and not end up loving it.

She was there for their first smiles, their first rolling over and sitting up, their first crawling. She got ridiculously excited at every milestone, bought them toys and a play rug, sprinted around frantically after them when they began crawling. (Lots of doors in the house had to get a lock after that point.) She was there for their first words, and the first time they began calling her "Mother." Her heart absolutely melted every time it was said. She knew it then - she was a sucker.

Sometimes they encouraged each other toward milestones. When Mai stood trembling to her feet and began stumbling her way toward Asima one afternoon, Asima quickly knelt and put out her hands, terrified. "Carefully… carefully…" Mai determinedly stumbled her way toward Asima.

Then, brightening, Shizuka decided she was game and followed Mai. At last, tentative but curious, Anzu toddled to her feet and stumbled away after her sisters.

"Careful - careful - oh my God - oh my god -" Asima watched in utter terror. She felt she was probably more afraid and panicked than her daughters, and might be hyperventilating just a little bit. She fell with every fall they made, felt a spark of triumph with every step. When they got up every time, and at last stumbled their way into her arms, she began shrieking in delight, just like every other stupid mother she'd always been contemptuous of.

"Mother - did it!" Anzu managed, and the other girls began joining her, and for perhaps the first time in her life Asima felt true, loving, proud human connection.

Children grew alarmingly quickly, at least in their younger years, Asima learned. They went through potty-training, naptimes, big-girl beds, toddler babble and endless rounds of questions. They began eating healthy baby foods in their high chairs, then finger foods and sippy cups, then sitting at the table and eating big-person foods, and she began teaching them - or trying to teach them - manners and cleanliness, sometimes with failure. They began running around after each other in the backyard, or on their daily walks, and if she'd thought crawling made it hard to keep up with them, walking and running was at least double that. She seemed to be in a constant state between proud and frantically alarmed.

This, she learned, was normal for a parent. The mother at the park that day had been right. Every night, Asima would tuck the girls into bed, say goodnight, turn on the bedroom nightlight and pause at the door. They seemed so tiny in their vast beds, so happy, and sometimes - unrealistic as it was - she wished she could protect them and keep them like that forever. Love always followed.

Then she would leave the bedroom and smile as she immediately heard jumping around and giggling sound on the other side. How they always managed to mess around late, but wake her up early the next morning excited to do fun things - well, that was far beyond her.

They continued to evolve as they grew. Anzu was obedient and rule enforcing, but she was also the queen of babble and fourteen thousand endless clever questions on random subjects even Asima didn't always know. She was take-charge in her rule enforcing and caution, though not the boldest - that prize belonged to Mai. Mai was feisty and rambunctious, getting into everywhere and everything she wasn't supposed to, and she was the queen of temper tantrums. Shizuka was calm and serene, often playing the cheerful, happy diplomat between the other two, but she was also the queen of daydreams and would begin wandering off during their daily walks after random things that interested her.

The girls were close to each other - not only did they play together and sleep in the same room underneath the same kinds of canopies and the same ceiling of glow in the dark stars and fairy lights, not only did they go through the same milestones, not only did they listen to the same stories and music, but they had an almost supernatural sense of one another. Each always knew exactly how the other two would react to everything, and if Asima wanted to know where one girl was, all she had to do was ask the other two. They would point and say matter of factly, "She over there."

Much to her relief, they seemed to love their Mother and were perfectly content in the house they'd grown up in. Every evening was bathtime, pajamas, and then she would read to them from a picture book, everyone gathered fascinated on one bed behind her to watch and listen. "One day I will begin homeschooling you," she said, "and you will be able to read these books like me."

She played them music as well, overcoming her dignity to dance around to it like a dork and get them to join in - culture and education were as important to her as cleanliness. So, she realized in surprise, was having fun. Asima finally learned to relax and have fun around three children, forming a dry, cheerful sense of humor around absolute chaos.

One day Asima got some playground equipment for the backyard. She had workers set up a jungle gym. Mai was the one who charged forward, climbing all over the new playground equipment.

"Gonna get hurt!" Anzu mandated, arms crossed, pouty, tearful, and scowling.

Mai rolled her eyes, exasperated. "Gotta climb up _sometime,_ " she said.

"Ooh! Look! Butterfly! Let's catch butterfly!" said Shizuka airily, watching one flitter over her head. And so eventually, they set to chasing butterflies around the yard, trying to catch them with nets instead.

"Try not to ruin the flowerbeds!" Asim called, wincing as they trampled among the plants.

Umeiko chuckled. "They're having fun, Asima," she said. "Let them be."

"Grandma Umeiko! Wanna help?" one of the girls called brightly, brandishing a butterfly net.

Umeiko was always game to help and could be free to be fun where Asima could not be. "Sure!" she called, beaming, and bounded at the three girls, chasing them. They squealed and ran in different directions, laughing, trying to avoid being tickled.

Grandma Umeiko often brought over baked treats and sweets, so she was their "absolute favorite" in the proudly precocious Anzu's enthusiastic words.

Asima did try to teach the girls not to be afraid or disgusted by bugs. She had them catch fireflies on summer nights, too. This did lead, however, to somewhat heartstopping moments wherein a little girl would pick up a spider and examine it brightly, and Asima would have a heart attack. None were afraid of roughhousing or getting dirty, though, and she cut off any attempts on their part to be picky eaters. Asima was proud of that.

Raising three girls as a single mother was difficult. Asima never pretended it wasn't. Mai grew a full head of wavy blonde hair to go with her violet eyes, Anzu short brown hair to go with her blue eyes, and Shizuka long straight auburn hair to go with her hazel eyes, and each suited different coloring when it came to clothes, but all three loved getting into Mother's makeup.

Asima would come in, hands on her hips, ready to scold them for playing with things in her room. Then she saw the war-like face paint spread across their expressions and began laughing - she could not help herself.

More difficult was intervening in fights. If one wasn't screaming because a sister had stolen her toy, another girl was screaming because her sister had put stuff in her space or was "touching her on purpose." They loved stealing from each other almost as much as they loved snickering and annoying each other, or being messy. Anzu and Mai were both easily fired up, but even Shizuka could become frigid and cold when pushed too far. Anzu and Mai shouted then got over it, but Shizuka could become frosty, silent, and stubborn for hours after becoming upset.

Asima, who had not gotten on well with her own brother, always knelt before them and said seriously, "My brother and I never got along, and now we don't speak. I want you three to be better than that. You're sisters, and you have to love, understand, and support each other for the rest of your whole lives. Through thick and thin, boys and fashion and everything else - these two other girls are the only other people you will always have throughout the rest of your entire life.

"Now, I want you each to say sorry and admit what you did that was wrong. Okay?"

Asima never tolerated any fighting. She particularly headed off any clawing, scratching, shrieking, or slapping. Such things were never okay in her house. She promoted cleaning up big messes, playing together, and sharing. Soon enough, the fights would be forgotten and the sisters would be happily playing together again.

"Your parents all had to go away somewhere else, so I took you in," Asima would say, which was technically the truth but not the whole truth. "I adopted each of you. You see? We all came from different families but we're together now. So it's important that we all love each other very much."

Mai had about twenty stuffed animals on her big-girl bed - for such a tomboy, she had a distinct love for cute, fluffy things and enjoyed giving them bizarre names. And out of all the girls, she most loved playing ball outside.

Shizuka had a collection of rocks and crystals and feathers found around the yard. (Sometimes Asima would purposefully buy things and leave them there for her to find.) Shizuka also drew vast colorful pictures that were essentially inintelligible, but Asima pretended to understand when she babbled explanations anyway, or drew funny colors in the coloring book.

Anzu loved playing with any kind of toy or action figure, boy's or girl's, ordering them around and directing imaginary play with them. She loved vast mats and houses that were their own little worlds she could arrange things around in. Anzu was a born chatterer, and easily and excitedly shared her ideas with others, albeit often in toddler babble.

And Asima started them on chores. They helped her with the houseplants, brought her cooking materials during dinner preparation, and every day they picked up all their own toys and put them back in the play chest themselves. They even helped make their big-girl beds, with some amount of pride. Soon, they were doing other things on their own, like chasing each other around shrieking and laughing at the park. They were their own people, but they knew all the rules: eat politely at dinner, wash your hands, bedtime is bedtime, hold hands and look before crossing the street. Dinners were usually something healthy: stir fry, salad, wrap. Or for a snack, berries and yogurt, trail mix. Eggs and toast for breakfast.

They did eventually learn the things Asima wanted them to learn - an almost boyish fearlessness, cleanliness and neatness, healthy eating and playing around, polite speech, and a love for stories and music. They did fun things together, and with their Mother. From an early age, she let them decide things and become individuals for themselves. The four of them had fun picking out new clothes together, and Asima made sure to tell them often - no matter how cheesy and pointless it seemed at the time - how proud she was of them for being themselves, and how much she loved them. Love, that was important, and she emphasized it. She made sure to tell them what strong, clever people they were. Thus, they became stronger and cleverer.

And so they grew more and more individual: Anzu clever and chatty, but also cautious and bossy, and increasingly smirking and crafty when trying to win against her sisters (though less tearful and angry and rule enforcing as time passed and she grew more secure). Mai fiery and short-tempered, but bold and energetic and the first to try anything, mixed with an almost Asima level of fearless wisdom and calm (as she grew out of the tantrums that were largely ignored and love instead was emphasized). Shizuka serene and daydreamy, compassionate and kind and surprisingly perceptive despite her seeming dottiness, but capable of both enormous bravery and a fierce kind of coldness and dignity when she wanted to be (encouraged by her mother's emphasis on inner strength and individualism).

Asima made sure, despite her own private anxiety and fears - she made sure they learned how to fix their own problems themselves. She did care for them - tending to their colds when they were sick, bandaging their cuts and bruises when they came crying to her. But with smaller things, she let them figure it out. "What do you think you should do for yourself?" she asked them, every time they came upon a conundrum. And slowly they learned to puzzle out their own problems, and became increasingly independent themselves, even from a young age cleaning up their own messes and making their own food. They even stopped wiping their noses on Asima's shirt. She never shouted, but her fearsome disapproval dissuaded them from misbehaving anyway.

The only kinds of television she allowed them to watch were Disney and Miyazaki movies, and that only sparingly and only when the television involved strong women. Kid's movies at the theater were vetted before the children were allowed to sit through them. No electronics yet. They would sit before the television, watching transfixed as they imbibed a great deal of imagination and loving ideals, and the movies inspired them. One of their favorite things to do, besides dancing in a silly way with Mother, from the beginning was dressup. Asima and Umeiko would tirelessly handmake requested costumes, just to give the girls a chance to dress up as fantastical characters and chase each other around the room, commanding and shouting and pretending to be the strong women they loved in the movies.

One summer, Asima slathered them with sunscreen and took them to the seaside. They ate watermelon on towels underneath an umbrella, felt the sand between their toes, poked at seaweed and collected shells and looked in the tidepools while the tide was out, walked along the pier, and Asima took them one by one by the hand in one piece bathing suits to stand at the exciting edge of the surf. At sunset, to end the day, they built a sandcastle on top of Asima before heading back exhausted to their hotel rooms and falling asleep on the stiff blue beds. Summer trips to the beach would later become a yearly treat, spanning several scrapbooks and hundreds of pictures.

She really did smile indulgingly and hold their hands as they bounced excitedly through the streets. They formed a little human chain, the four of them together.

As they became older, she took them more to the vast green local children's park, she took them to the local pool for swimming lessons, and she took them from tricycles to bicycle riding. One day, Umeiko and Asima were standing smiling on the suburban road outside Asima's house, watching as the girls took their first crooked wheels on bicycles along the smooth, paved cul de sac.

"Like this!" Mai called, showing Anzu a move. She was already scraped up pretty badly, which was how she knew what to do, but she hadn't cried once.

"Like this?" a tentative but curious Anzu asked, trying to copy the movie Mai was showing her. She wasn't as good at physical moves, but she gave it a try nonetheless, in her own quirky, precocious, deadly concentrating kind of way.

"This is so cool! It's like I'm flying!" Shizuka called in delight, spinning around the road in delight, watching the sky pass by her.

"Try to concentrate a little more on the road!" Asima called after her in worried amusement.

"Kay!"

Umeiko chuckled. "They take after you a lot, you know."

"They do?" said Asima in surprise, uncertain and puzzled. She pointed at herself.

"Yes, they're always copying you," said Umeiko. "They are their own people. But they get a lot of the love and happiness in their eyes, a lot of their calm and bravery and intelligence, from you. They really look up to you, you know. I'm the fun one, but you're who they look up to. I think they find you very comforting. It makes sense; you're a good mother. Anzu, the precocious one, says you have a cool silvery voice and soft gentle hands and you smell of sandalwood. They are very lucky to have you."

She smiled as Asima looked contemplative. "I don't feel like I'm much of a person to look up to," she admitted at last.

"You have changed, Asima. And I think it's for the better," said Umeiko.

"I have?"

Umeiko nodded. "You've opened up, become calm and fun and formed a wonderful deadpan sense of humor. These girls have been very good for you. You seem happier. Not as uptight. You wear your ponytail a little looser these days," she joked. "Your face doesn't seem so pulled back."

"I am happier," Asima realized. "I am. I think I might start teaching online classes again, actually. I've been considering that for a while. And maybe it's time to teach _them_ some things," she added thoughtfully to herself, watching the girls play.

"I thought you weren't going to homeschool them for another year," said Umeiko in surprise.

"I'm not," said Asima, determination forming. "That's not what I was talking about."

Some of it, they could only learn as they became older, but much of it they could start now. It was time to teach the girls about magic, Arabic and Egyptology, and games. And soon would come the beginning of homeschooling.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

And so Asima began teaching again.

She would direct the online classes, giving lectures from her computer at home, grading assignments sent to her through email or the school website, making up powerpoints and little instruction videos. The girls interrupted her a lot during online lectures at first, toddling through the room into the camera behind Asima to much student laughter.

Asima would whirl around. "No!" she squealed, embarrassed. "Not now! Time to go!" She would pick up one or more of her daughters and hurry them out of the room. Luckily, most of her college students seemed to find the interruptions hilarious instead of annoying.

Eventually, the girls did learn to understand the words "Mother is working." Strangely? This did not always stop the interruptions. As they got older, Asima's daughters would enter the room behind her just to make a weird face and a victory sign at the camera, then stroll or run back off. This became one of her students' favorite parts of learning with Asima, and soon her students each semester knew all of her daughters by face and name, and would sometimes greet them when they strolled casually through with a snack. The young Tammam sisters, according to an amused Grandma Umeiko, were somewhat famous around the physical Tokyo university campus Asima no longer visited.

Asima pretended to be exasperated, but really both her family and her job brought her great joy. She genuinely enjoyed teaching - for a while she'd forgotten just how much. It brought her great satisfaction, and she found that now that she was more relaxed, she had more humor and tolerance for student foibles. And this situation was the perfect compromise. The rest of the time she wasn't on her computer, she was with her daughters at home teaching them all the things she thought they needed to know.

Gaming was important. She took them through beginning strategy games, with an especial emphasis on chess and strategy- and roleplay-based video games. She taught them from a young age to think through every single individual move, competing against each other and sometimes even against Asima herself within the safe confines of their own home, usually sitting on the floor in front of the TV or over a table.

None of the girls were naturals when it came to gaming, not even Mai. Mai got impatient and frustrated easily with slower strategy games, shouting and refusing to play anymore, or losing her temper when she lost. Asima had to talk her through getting back into the game over and over again, keeping calm and even losing, when she lost, with dignity.

"Relax and keep serene," Asima would advise her. "Focus on thinking through the game. And remember, everyone loses sometimes. They key is to losing with grace. Next time you might win, remember, and you would of course want the other person to lose with grace."

Learning to keep a hold on her patience and temper was a slow process for young Mai. She had to find that fine line between intentness and calm concentration, and Asima tried to help her find it as best she could. "Intensity is good, but so is serenity," she would say. "Those two things together make for a deadly player. Never let your emotions get the best of you in a strategy game."

Shizuka had a different problem. She went slowly and got lost in lackadaisical daydreams. "I move my knight to, oh look at that bird out the window…" she would say dreamily, smiling, and her mother and sisters would become exasperated. Other times she would talk about the fascinating patterns the players made on the chessboard, or begin postulating on the troubling mental state of the characters in the video games. She was highly amusing, but slow reflexes and a wandering mind did not a good gamer make.

"Your job is to learn to focus on the right things," said Asima, somewhat pained. "Keep that cheerful, serene happiness and that cold inner strength. That's good. But combine them into a brave, focused, even-tempered person."

The normally brilliant Anzu turned out to be horrible at strategy. She lost and lost, over and over again, her mother painstakingly teaching her the ways of strategically organizing her moves that did not come naturally to her anymore than physical talent did. Anzu was a hard worker, however, and a fierce studier with a clever, crafty, vicious side and a bossy self confidence.

"You think through everything," said Asima. "Your job with gaming is to learn how to think through things in the right way."

Quirky, loud, and intensely concentrating, Anzu put her focus on strategizing her games, not just doing the moves that made the most sense in the moment. She shouted with an excited thrill of victory on the rare occasions when she won. Over time, those occasions became less rare.

Slowly, they grew.

Mai became fiery and acid-tongued but calm, smirking, sort of deadpan. Fire calmed by ice, an eerie lack of expression but an acidic wit and a fierce desire to win, became her calling card.

Shizuka became a bright, cheerful, serene girl with a cold inner fire, proudly different, but she also never lost sight of the present. She was present, in the moment, with good reflexes, surprising wisdom, compassion, and perception of people, and a deceptively clever and imaginative mind and thrill of competition - playful competition - that could be dangerous if one wasn't careful.

Anzu took her vicious, self confident craftiness and loud mouthed, quirky brilliance into the gaming arena. A fast thinker and a better strategist, capable of figuring out things no one else could, thinking on her feet, puzzling her way through any strategy, and noticing the tiniest of details, Anzu - to the surprise of her sisters - turned out in some ways to be the most dangerous and delightedly competitive gamer of all. She smirked as she destroyed her opponent.

Also came magic. "No one else can know you are capable of magic," Asima warned them from the beginning. "The magic in this family is a big secret. That's very important." When the girls had agreed they understood, Asima unlocked her trunk full of ancient Arabic spellbooks with a thrill of the old, instinctive fear. "I took these with me when I escaped from my family in Egypt," she whispered, almost with shame, to her adopted daughters. They knew all four of them had come from different families, so they nodded solemnly, accepting.

Asima's fears were soon waylaid.

She taught them Arabic. They learned how to speak it first, from a young age, but as they got older they learned to read it as well. As early as they started it, they gained a perfect accent. They also learned ancient Arabic, which was in some ways quite different from its modern counterpart, memorizing language and symbols and hieroglyphs. As they learned this alongside Japanese, as young children their minds soaked up the language and they learned very much very fast. This helped them read Asima's spellbooks for themselves.

She also taught them Egyptology, as she did her school students. They soaked up information about Egypt itself, particularly its history and its ancient counterpart.

In magic, she started them out with small things: using magic to move things around, create sparks or flints of ice that swirled around in their hand, transforming and rejecting tiny objects. Once they had come into contact with their magic, it was not uncommon to see a random toy, vase, or object floating aimlessly around the house, sometimes having grown furry legs or malformed into a strange shape. They also learned how to make beginner's potions, sleeping tinctures, tiny healers, tiny attackers - light kid's stuff, really. And she taught them to become in touch with the other world, with their subconsciouses - just to start out with feeling beginning visions for now. They put each other through beginning hypnosis and healed each other's cuts and bruises with flashes of light magic.

She did not teach them about the Netherworld or the ancient destiny legends and prophecies yet. Nor did she tell them the secret of why she had adopted them and taught them all of this, and as young children this was their whole world, so they never thought to ask. They did not question their world anymore than they comprehended destiny or death. All of that would come later.

Anzu was not a natural at magic, but she was an extraordinarily hard worker. She memorized advanced texts at young ages, and came up with increasingly clever uses for magic as she spent countless hours on it the way she did on gaming. Anzu channelled all of her brilliance into her potions, visions, and spells. Anzu was eager, practically soaking up every piece of knowledge she could get her hands on, working and practicing constantly. She seemed determined to become a jack of all trades, at least somewhat good at everything. She was also, it must be added, as crafty in magic as she was in games. With private magic duels in the house against her mother or her sisters, she was an extremely clever and shameless cheater.

Mai also fought dirty, but in a more direct and upfront way. Smirking and deadpan, fire in her eyes, she was absolutely vicious. She had a particular flair for the nastier and more controlling side of magic. The darker side of magic was her true forte, and from a young age she could inflict some extremely nasty attacks with skill. She was talented, and she believed in having nerve and never being timid or intimidated by anything. She was fiercely competitive and highly instinctual. This, naturally, made her deadly in magic duels and all nature of combat. She had raw power, even from a young age as a tiny person.

Shizuka was infuriating to magically duel, because she never lost her serene, level headed, smiling playfulness. This made her easy to underestimate. But Shizuka could do clever things that no one else had ever thought of before. Someone would send an attack and she would conjure a wall of twirling butterflies, shaped like a school of fish, to take the attack in her place. She was highly inventive, and Asima was often left wondering, "Where did she learn to do that?" She was good at seeing the things no one else did, at observing people and sensing hidden opportunities, and she had a particular flair for visions, dreams, and for all manner of light magic, including physical and psychic healing. She had moments of solemn calm, mixed with moments of cold, icy fury, and in both states she could be surprisingly deadly.

As their magic got stronger, so did their souls and their ability to handle powerful magical force. Asima was preparing them for the Shadow Realm.

As they were all horrible, strategic cheaters, magic duels as well as strategy games became very interesting. Each girl would try to outwit the others, Shizuka smiling competitively, Mai smirking, Anzu shouting in victory. They loved three-way duels, where inevitably one would always end up paralyzing the other two.

They soon, learning from each other, came onto an even keel. They were all, in different ways, of equal ability, and they knew each other so well that fights became interesting and furious, though (usually) good-natured. Sometimes, when they lost their temper with one another, Asima would make them fight it out in the house in a "safe" environment, upping the stakes of whatever magic duel or game they decided to play, forcing them to play calmer and better through anger and pressure and also upping the ante.

And of course, on a more boring note, Asima also registered as a homeschool teacher and put them through homeschooling.

She tutored them in everything from reading and writing to science, mathematics, and history. She was a strict instructor, having little time for creative or busy work, and expecting much from her young pupils. Here, in the school environment, she became severe. The flip side of this was that they progressed quickly in an academic environment and got lots of one on one time with a very good, always professional teacher.

All were quite intelligent and soon learned the art of professionalism, so over time as they learned the rules, rigor, and self discipline of school, Asima became very pleased with them.

They grew into older children amid this big fancy house and their beautiful shared bedroom, being sisters both fighting and loving, running around and having fun, playfully interrupting their Mother's work, doing chores and eating healthy foods, practicing gaming, magic, and two languages with their Mother, doing homeschool work with their Mother, playing with their indulging Grandma Umeiko, and they were allowed to play outside quite a lot. As they grew older, Asima also became less strict on the kinds of movies and the amount of TV they could watch, and they became better at hiding the secret of their magic even from Grandma. As they had grown up knowing they were adopted, they never once doubted the genuineness of their loving family. They took summer vacations to the seaside, celebrated holidays and birthdays together as one big five-person family unit. They started drinking tea, coffee, hot cocoa, enjoying dessert. They got their first electronics.

They grew into their own people, slowly becoming old enough that they would begin to remember events from their childhood for the rest of their lives. In their conscious mind, their earliest world had always been like this, and they didn't know it was unusual - not yet.

Asima was not sure if she would ever tell them about their family origins. She didn't want to hurt them, and thought this would protect them from harm.

Asima loved her daughters. They had changed her for the best, and she was proud of them. As they continued to grow, that never changed.

* * *

Author's Note: This is the last Asima POV / Asima centric chapter, at least for a long time. As you can see, I've been switching slowly over to the three girls, and next chapter we will start focusing mostly on them, their lives, and their thoughts. That transition will be complete.


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